Back When

Thirty Years Ago The first time I saw B.B. (BeBe) was 1967; she was in a white corduroy jockey suit and cap. She reminded me of a 90-pound white rat on speed. Later at an after-the-play party for Theatre Five in Pacific Beach, Bob Glaudini, the director, threw her over his shoulder and carried her from the theater screaming, "You're all fascists, you live off the rich." I looked to check the response of her husband, San Diego Superior Court judge Roger S. Ruffin....there was none. A few years ago, Warhol put her in his film shot on the beach at La Jolla. -- "GOODBYE RADICAL CHIC," Winifred, November 13, 1975

Twenty-Five Years Ago It was mostly dirt. A dirt road, a bunch of one-story houses and a few two-story ones, a scattering of low wooden fences, and a lot of front yards and dirt back yards. Around it some trees, the tallest of them barely higher than the rooftops, some low scrub, and more dirt. This was Old Town in 1867 when Alonzo E. Horton arrived and said, "I would not give you five dollars for a deed to the whole of it." -- "THE ARCHIVE," Amy Chu, November 13, 1980

Twenty Years Ago Just before 6:00 p.m. on Friday, September 13, Bro stepped out the back door. He'd spent the past half-hour smoking cocaine -- freebasing -- paranoia was beginning to set in. It seemed to have started after he moved in with plans to make the two-story, four-bedroom home the ultimate party house. -- "LIFE AND DEATH AT THE PINK PALACE," Thomas K. Arnold, November 14, 1985

Fifteen Years Ago Jesusita shook my hand and called me hermano. Brother. This is not a common Mexican greeting. It is used among Protestants as shorthand for "fellow Christian." A "real" Mexican would never resort to such fanaticism. The poor, however, deal with missionaries and learn to use religious terms. It is often a manipulative thing; they are hoping you will assume they are "Hallelujahs" too and give them more goods than the rest. -- "SIFTING THROUGH THE TRASH," Luis Urrea, November 15, 1990

Ten Years Ago Where did my father bring his kids? We went on excursions, which he called "take-ins." Walden Pond, the House of the Seven Gables, the U.S.S. Constitution -- "Old Ironsides," the Harvard Yard. We visited Hawthorne's house in Salem, saw Gallows Hill, and knew the very spot where the witches were cruelly hanged. (Rebecca Nourse, slipping at the foot of the gibbet, rose and said, "I didn't have my breakfast.") We climbed New Hampshire's Mt. Washington in August 1951 and almost got lost. By the age of 12, I was familiar with Lexington Green; Louisa May Alcott's house, or "Apple Slump"; Mother Goose's grave; the Concord Bridge; Benjamin Franklin's birthplace on Milk Street; and the statue of the brave Indian fighter Hannah Dustin in the town of Haverhill. ("Why is Haverhill always clean? It's got Hannah Dustin.") -- "DECENT LIFE LED BY THE ORDINARY MAN," Alexander Theroux, November 9, 1995

Five Years Ago Re Richard Meltzer's lambaste of S.D. native made good Cameron Crowe I have this to say: drop the comedy bits. Possible explanations for Meltzer's bitterisms re Crowe:

Richie gets 45 hits using the AOL search engine, Cameron -- 145 (ouch). Adding insult to injury, nuthin -- and I mean in the big O sense of nuthin -- about that "hotcake" book of yours, o rock guru.

Or maybe it's cuz you were fired from RS and Cammy wasn't. If you hate RS so much why are you -- probably to this day -- "mentioning" to folks you wrote for it?

Possible third scenario -- Crowe is married to Heart guitarist Nancy Wilson, and you...ain't. -- LETTERS: "MELTZER'S BITTERISMS," David Rizzuto, November 9, 2000